If Sonic was ever sold to another game company...

[Wraith]

Regardless of the "Sonic sells better on Nintendo consoles" argument being truthful or not (which I don't think it is btw), I don't know what difference that is supposed to make whenever the idea being brought up here is "which company would be more likely to grab them up", not "which company would Sonic sell best under". Sega's not looking for profits in this discussion, they're looking to sell their franchise to someone that'll take care of it.

And tbh while I see Nintendo or Sony being the best bets to pick him up, I think Nintendo would be way more likely to be there as soon as it leaves Sega's hands. Nintendo seems to care about the series' well being, considering it not only was the greatest competitor to Mario back in the day for it's quality, but also has made such a great bond with their IPs that they'd have to buy him up to make sure he stays in first-party content like Smash, Olympics, etc.

I also couldn't see Nintendo getting rid of some of the key members to Sonic Team, either. I'd honestly expect a good bit of the art team, the musicians at Wave Master, a few programmers, and some of higher management (..including Iizuka as well...) having openings given to them at Nintendo without hesitation, considering the goodwill amongst each other. However, I'd expect Nintendo's new plans to mean that they'd want that team to fit under their standard of game quality.

If you're really worried about sales numbers (which honestly you shouldn't, moreso than... you know, wanting good games..), then don't. Sonic games will sell, and if Nintendo markets a console properly then the consoles will also sell. Sonic fans didn't really flock to the Wii U anyways because they didn't think that Sonic games were Nintendo-exclusive from then on out. I mean, why would they? If that changed, I think that in itself would be enough to sell consoles. Sonic has that kind of power.

The thing is, a lot of people just don't want Sonic to be exclusive to anything, which is pretty understandable. As much as I'd LIKE Sonic to be exclusive to Nintendo for the sake of quality games and think they'd be the best fit for the franchise, I also understand people not wanting Sonic to be tied to a console they want nothing to do with and using sales data to back up why it's not a good idea. 

 

[Dejimon11]

You know personally I think almost any company will be a better fit for Sonic than SEGA right now. Sonic is their mascot and let's be real here they're treating it like crap. 

[azoo]

The thing is, a lot of people just don't want Sonic to be exclusive to anything, which is pretty understandable. As much as I'd LIKE Sonic to be exclusive to Nintendo for the sake of quality games and think they'd be the best fit for the franchise, I also understand people not wanting Sonic to be tied to a console they want nothing to do with and using sales data to back up why it's not a good idea. 

Absolutely, and I understand that argument completely. I wouldn't personally want Sonic limited to one console, and God knows I'd prefer the series to be in a state that allows PC releases.

But putting it with Sony would be just as bad of an idea as Nintendo in that context. Granted it would ensure good sales for this console generation, but not only would it be console exclusive, but it'd break all previous ties of goodwill with Nintendo. And what kind of goodwill does Sony and Sonic really have together, besides straight-up numbers? Sony would take pretty good care of it I'm sure, but there's nothing to signify how inclusive they'd be with it. It sure wouldn't feel at home if anything, and even if they tried to make it feel that way then it'd feel a tiny bit... out of place imo? Sony's IPs for the most part don't really have the same style or feel as Sonic; if anything he'd be an outlier amongst their IPs for being... well, colorful and extremely Japanesey (in a "traditional game series" kind of way).

I could see it working out, but I just couldn't see it working out nearly as well. I feel like no matter what way you spin it, Nintendo 'gets' Sonic and could fit him right in with their content with the least amount of change. That's moreso than Sony, or Microsoft, or any third-party company.

Which is why I'd honestly say the best answer is not to hope Sonic would be sold, but that Sega gets their shit together. :v

[Bowbowis]

And what kind of goodwill does Sony and Sonic really have together, besides straight-up numbers?

Well Sony is working on the movie, so there is that.

At any rate, another (admittedly unlikely) possibility for who Sonic could go to would be Yuji Naka's company Prope. After all if you're going to give the franchise to anybody it might as well be the man who made it great to begin.

[Wraith]

Well Sony is working on the movie, so there is that.

At any rate, another (admittedly unlikely) possibility for who Sonic could go to would be Yuji Naka's company Prope. After all if you're going to give the franchise to anybody it might as well be the man who made it great to begin.

I feel like there's a reason Prope isn't actually considered a big name all the time that it's existed. It's never made anything all that remarkable. Granted, the jury's out on Rodea, but still.

Yuki Naka may have had a big hand in making Sonic, but he didn't do it on his own. It was a team effort.

[Hero of Legend]

Besides, Arzest and Prope are more or less work-for-hire developers like Platinum and others.

Prope has released their own mobile games, but neither have ever self-published their own indie games even on digital stores.

Not to mention Prope surely don't have anywhere near the amount of cash to buy Sonic, neither would Arzest. Sonic can only be bought by a big publisher because of his status. Iconic IPs surely don't come cheap, regardless of the quality of their output.

I think the last major shift in the balance of power in iconic IPs was when Activision merged with Vivendi Games and got Crash and Spyro in the process. Most IPs sold are pretty mid-tier these days. Even THQ's lot had a huge price on them (though who'd have thought Nordic would afford most of that), but outside of some hardcore IPs like Red Faction, Saint's Row (to Deep Silver), and what not, I'm struggling to think of anything compatible to Sonic in fame and status, and even those are WAY below Sonic.

Sonic's basically only able to be bought by someone with a LOT of money. Nintendo still has their famous war chest from the Wii and DS days, no, whatever money they may have lost on Wii U and to a lesser extant 3DS at first was MINUSCULE compared to the money they still have.

[blooob]

To be honest, Is that any company likes(or wants) to buy Sonic series which is falling to death? I think no one will buy it.

[AshGreninJovan]

To be honest, Is that any company likes(or wants) to buy Sonic series which is falling to death? I think no one will buy it.

If that so, who will be Sega's symbol anyway?

[Mauro Fonseca]

If that so, who will be Sega's symbol anyway?

TA-DA-DA-TA-TA-RA-RA

TA-TA-RA-RA

TA-RA-RA TA-RA-RA TA-DA-RA

 

yeah I'm down for this

[Blacklightning]

To be honest, Is that any company likes(or wants) to buy Sonic series which is falling to death? I think no one will buy it.

The value of the Sonic franchise is completely irrelevant to its current state of being - regardless of the way Sega's treating it, it's a very recognizable brand, and that in of itself makes it extremely valuable. In fact it's arguably the main reason it's coasted along for as long as it has. That's far from the only factor, too. If you saw the liquidation of THQ back in the day, you'd see publishers buying off franchises that were doing every bit as badly and didn't even have the same brand recognition - someone even bought off Homefront of all IPs, which only had a single game which wasn't even received all that well.

[Your Vest Friend]

Did people think my first page shot was a swipe suggesting no-one would buy it? No, I was more reflecting on how Japanese business can work. Nintendo's going to let Mario die if the company goes defunct as opposed to selling him off, I'm suspicious that SEGA might hold the same stance on their flagship character. Not so much the other properties, as evidence by Shenmue. 

[NoirSuede]

Why do people constantly ask for studios that have never made a platformer or an action game or anything REMOTELY like Sonic before?

 

Like, Bethesda? The fuck

You apparently didn't read the part about mod tools.

 

Can't wait for a open-world first-person RPG about Sonic running fast. Yay.

 

That's.... Actually pretty cool.

[Wraith]

You apparently didn't read the part about mod tools.

Oh no, I did. That's just...not a good enough reason to pick Bethesda for a Sonic game. They've made literally nothing like it before. They'd have no idea what they're doing. 

[NoirSuede]

 

Oh no, I did. That's just...not a good enough reason to pick Bethesda for a Sonic game. They've made literally nothing like it before. They'd have no idea what they're doing. 

Doesn't mean they can't learn. For example Fallout 3.

[Wraith]

Doesn't mean they can't learn. For example Fallout 3.

They didn't really "learn" when it came to Fallout 3. They just changed Fallout to fit their mold. 

http://images9.gry-online.pl/galeria/galeria_duze3/137584953.jpg

 

 

And I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of Sonic becoming a first person open world game. That's pretty much the opposite of what I want, actually

 

 

 

[NoirSuede]

They didn't really "learn" when it came to Fallout 3. They just changed Fallout to fit their mold. 

http://images9.gry-online.pl/galeria/galeria_duze3/137584953.jpg

 

 

And I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of Sonic becoming a first person open world game. That's pretty much the opposite of what I want, actually

 

 

 

I meant in the fundamental gameplay aspect, sure the plot and the setting was a garbled mess because Bethesda can't write to save their lives, but before Fallout 3 the only FPS/RPG to ever nail the balance between the FPS component and the RPG component was Deus Ex, most other FPSRPGs either have too much dice-rolls and arbitrary stat crunching like Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines and Mass Effect 1 or they have too little RPG elements like Invisible War/Bioshock, but Fallout 3 manages to balance both in a way that doesn't feel to dice-rolly and set the fundamentals for a team with actual writing skills like Obsidian for Fallout New Vegas.

 

goddamit i can't believe i'm defending fallout 3 it's the worst mainline fallout game

[Wraith]

I meant in the fundamental gameplay aspect, sure the plot and the setting was a garbled mess because Bethesda can't write to save their lives, but before Fallout 3 the only FPS/RPG to ever nail the balance between the FPS component and the RPG component was Deus Ex, most other FPSRPGs either have too much dice-rolls and arbitrary stat crunching like Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines and Mass Effect 1 or they have too little RPG elements like Invisible War/Bioshock, but Fallout 3 manages to balance both in a way that doesn't feel to dice-rolly and set the fundamentals for a team with actual writing skills like Obsidian for Fallout New Vegas.

I mean they still had to make arguably unneeded changes to Fallout to get to that point, right? Who said it needed to be a first person shooter to begin with? Weren't the other games fine? 

Bethesda changed it to the genre they were good at but added RPG elements to appeal to the fans. I can't see them not doing the same thing to Sonic and making it some weird open world first person thing.

[azoo]

Did people think my first page shot was a swipe suggesting no-one would buy it? No, I was more reflecting on how Japanese business can work. Nintendo's going to let Mario die if the company goes defunct as opposed to selling him off, I'm suspicious that SEGA might hold the same stance on their flagship character. Not so much the other properties, as evidence by Shenmue. 

They may do something like that.

But Sonic is such a ridiculously big franchise that I imagine some company would try to give them an offer they couldn't refuse. Mario would be held by Nintendo to their very deathbed because of how iconic Mario is as a part of Nintendo's legacy. Sonic is the same to Sega, but Sega is a much smaller and less powerful company who knows their allies.

In a dream world, I'd like to imagine a 'what if' scenario of Sonic Team itself being bought by Nintendo, although still in partnership with Sega as they have supervision, oversight and support in name only (kind of like Bayonetta). Not only would it still be a Sega property, but Nintendo would be behind it's new management and new recruits, and give the more tired members of the team jobs on different games in the house of the newly-structured EPD. This would also open up chances to get Sonic Team to return to making other IPs, since the burden would be less on them having to make a new Sonic every time they need money (which under Sega alone is "all the time").

Plus, it would open up chances to get Yasuhara, Naka or Oshima back on board for a game or two, and to be honest I yearn for the day we get those guys back on again. Actually, having Sonic Team partially owned by Nintendo would make a good chance for Yasuhara to rejoin Sonic Team and take position as lead game designer or whatever, idk that guy's work is genius and needs to get back onto a Sonic game.

I'm just spitballing at a pipe dream, but it's fun so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited September 19, 2015 by Azoo

[NoirSuede]

I mean they still had to make arguably unneeded changes to Fallout to get to that point, right? Who said it needed to be a first person shooter to begin with? Weren't the other games fine? 

Bethesda changed it to the genre they were good at but added RPG elements to appeal to the fans. I can't see them not doing the same thing to Sonic and making it some weird open world first person thing.

Isometric RPGs don't work on a console.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Isometric RPGs don't work on a console.

Disgaea.

[NoirSuede]

Disgaea.

I mean the classic PC styled isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Fallout 1/2, they play very differently from console RPGs like Disgaea and Final Fantasy 1-6

 

Edited September 19, 2015 by NoirSuede
Less rude

[Blacklightning]

Doesn't mean they can't learn. For example Fallout 3.

Literally all they did to adapt Fallout was to take the engine from Oblivion and add guns to it. That isn't learning so much as reprogamming the bow subclass to hitscan and shoot fast, and it's a pretty far cry from overhauling the entire physics engine to make momentum carry over, to gain speed from slopes or at the very least not allow people to climb near-vertical faces by rubbing sideways back and forth along them.

I also don't really get why you emphasise mod-ability just to compensate for obvious developer shortcomings when you could just hook Sonic up with a decent QA department instead and have him not suck right from the start. Like goddamn man, mods can be alright and all but they shouldn't be used as a fucking crutch like that.

[AshGreninJovan]

 

I also don't really get why you emphasise mod-ability just to compensate for obvious developer shortcomings when you could just hook Sonic up with a decent QA department instead and have him not suck right from the start. Like goddamn man, mods can be alright and all but they shouldn't be used as a fucking crutch like that.

Maybe because of Sonic Generations PC Mod?

Well, I disagree that Bethesda will take control of Sonic. Someday, they will forget him like their old games(except The Elder Scrolls & Fallout) they had created before.

[NoirSuede]

Maybe because of Sonic Generations PC Mod?

Well, I disagree that Bethesda will take control of Sonic. Someday, they will forget him like their old games(except The Elder Scrolls & Fallout) they had created before.

Pretty much what you've just said, and Sonic has a huge community of hacks and fan-game makers, but right now they're hampered by the fact that the tech available doesn't let them make what they really wanted to make (for example every single custom map for Sonic Generations that's not the Unleashed Project has no lighting whatsoever because the level editor Darioff made doesn't support lighting effects), with mod tools they can finally not have to worry about tech limitations and make whatever they wanted to make.

 

 

Literally all they did to adapt Fallout was to take the engine from Oblivion and add guns to it. That isn't learning so much as reprogamming the bow subclass to hitscan and shoot fast, and it's a pretty far cry from overhauling the entire physics engine to make momentum carry over, to gain speed from slopes or at the very least not allow people to climb near-vertical faces by rubbing sideways back and forth along them.

I also don't really get why you emphasise mod-ability just to compensate for obvious developer shortcomings when you could just hook Sonic up with a decent QA department instead and have him not suck right from the start. Like goddamn man, mods can be alright and all but they shouldn't be used as a fucking crutch like that.

Mario Maker.

Also, Fallout 4's coming out soon, and it's on a brand new engine, so the jury's still out on whether they'll f*** up QA again.

[Blacklightning]

Pretty much what you've just said, and Sonic has a huge community of hacks and fan-game makers, but right now they're hampered by the fact that the tech available doesn't let them make what they really wanted to make (for example every single custom map for Sonic Generations that's not the Unleashed Project has no lighting whatsoever because the level editor Darioff made doesn't support lighting effects), with mod tools they can finally not have to worry about tech limitations and make whatever they wanted to make.

That's nice and all but it still has nothing to do with either of our original points - you specifically brought up mods as a compromise for the game turning out shit, which is something that can already be avoided by handing over to a dev that can be trusted not to make a shit game. Hell, even if fans outright overhaul a AAA-level fuckup it's still going to take them a good year or so after release in the very best case scenario, and that's even assuming they're all collaborating on the same project rather than hundreds of individual fixes and tweaks that might not even be compatible with each other, Skyrim's Workshop community case in point.

This is a needlessly defeatist way of thinking at its core. Fair enough if you just want a moddable Sonic game, but Bethesda is pretty much the worst possible dev imaginable to handle the game it's built on. It's like endorsing a turd sundae just because you can choose the toppings.

Mario Maker.

You're going to need more than two words to tell me how this is significant at all to the discussion here.

Also, Fallout 4's coming out soon, and it's on a brand new engine

No, not really. And even if it were, it's not like they're moving out of their comfort zone or anything - it's virtually the same loot-based sandbox shooter based on a loot-based sandbox slasher it always was. The problem with your argument here is that Bethesda specialize in first person games, and pretty dull looking ones to boot, and for every indication they've shown so far, would be absolutely horrible at making a platforming game of any kind, let alone one as dynamic as Sonic. You can keep crying "bbbbbut the fans!" all you like, but you're only kidding yourself if you're insinuating mod capability is somehow a better deal than simply getting a great core game right from the start.